Being Danny
by alittlenutjob
Summary: Everything here takes place between The Mindy Project 'The Girl Next Door' and 'Danny & Mindy.' You don't actually need prior knowledge of Being Erica, but I'll always recommend it. You do need to be familiar with The Mindy Project to follow, and again I recommend it with all my heart. I own nothing but the laptop and write with the greatest respect for the actual creators.
1. Putting the damage on

He was pretending to sleep when he heard the door slam. What the point of pretending might be, he didn't care to examine too closely. No one was coming home to him tonight.

Danny imagined her walking around the apartment next door (his apartment, only sort of her apartment, definitely not their apartment) and flipping lights on. He remembered too well following her around her own home as she turned every light on as soon as she walked in (_So I don't get murdered, Danny_.) and then leaving them blazing, some of them all night. Most of them all night.

Sometimes she made tea at night, although it was more likely she was opening wine. If the date with the cop had gone well she'd be pouring a glass, if it had gone badly she'd just take the open bottle to bed. He couldn't really hear through the walls, but he knew her so well, he knew his place (not her place) so well that through rough brick and smooth plaster he could imagine the click of heels as she neared the bedroom, the soft shuffle as she kicked them under the bed. It was only when he heard her voice that he realized his bedroom window was just open enough, just enough, that what he was hearing was real. She'd left her bedroom window open again while she was gone, a habit he'd tried to break her of even before she moved into his extra apartment (definitely his, not hers at all) and a habit she'd probably never drop. (_You're going to get murdered, Mindy_. he'd admonished, once upon a time when what he said mattered to her.)

When he heard a low voice he let himself pretend for just a minute that she'd turned on the TV, or she'd just called home and put the phone speakerphone as she wiped the eye makeup away and struggled out of her pink dress. She'd probably told him at some point what the real color was, something like electraberry or sugarplum, but it was all pink to him. But the low voice was followed by a peal of her laughter, date laughter - not real laughter, and he knew that she'd brought her date home.

The accent was familiar, and if he could just shake away some of these things he had been trying to shake away for weeks (months, years) he could just pretend he was back on Staten, windows open on a warm night, the sounds of the neighborhood filtering through the window. He could pretend he'd wake up to one of Ma's big breakfasts (_You're so skinny, Daniel. You and your brother both. I should have let you stay my little butterball._) and they'd go to church together like a family. The only kind of family he'd ever known, maybe the only kind he'd ever know. If he could just forget where he was (where she was) he could go to sleep and let the day ebb away, and the anger, and the fucking humiliation that curled his hands into fists under the bedspread.

She couldn't have meant to be cruel. Mindy was a lot of things, but not cruel. She just...forgot. She'd just had a nice date with a probably nice enough man and she'd invited him back to her place. Maybe she'd opened that bottle of wine for the two of them. Why would she think about the neighbor, surely sleeping by now? She'd simply forgotten about him, and that was the realization that pushed hot tears through tightly closed eyes and pulled a sob like a hiccup from his too tight chest.

He could almost live with it if the story stopped there, but something almost exactly like a gasp cut straight through the air, through the walls, through his gut, and he knew that it hadn't.

She'd be a little flushed with wine and those little short kisses she liked to start with; she'd have a fine sheen of sweat building on her forehead as she got hotter (_Ladies' don't sweat, Danny. They glow_.) and her lipstick would be all rubbed away as the kisses got longer and the cop's hands gripped her tighter. Maybe that pink dress was being pushed up her thighs now. She only wore pantyhose occasionally (They're hot and you only ever get to wear them once before they get a run. You try them, Danny. A man invented them, I swear.) so right now new hands could be caressing that silky skin. It was a little softer inside her thighs than outside, and a little darker too. Danny could count on one hand how many times he'd gotten that far (_I said let's take it slow, not let's stop altogether_.) and somehow those few memories were distinct like fingerprints on his mind and too sharp tonight as he lay there in his bed. Danny hadn't had the chance to let them blur together, start to take those moments for granted, start to forget the difference between the first time she'd let him slip his hand between her legs and the second time, when he'd kissed her soft belly until giggles turned into sighs. Until her legs fell open in front of him. Until he'd held his breath and lowered his lips to that forbidden, silky, dark skin and almost passed out because he was afraid breathing would break the spell.

* * *

He understood why some people needed to listen to music to run, but the city has a beat of its own and when you're really there in the moment you don't need anything else. You just listen to the city as you cut right through it, a part of it all, in the way that people who haven't lived in a city would never understand. The sharp hoot of a pissed off cabbie, the occasional whoosh of train cars unseen, 80 different mother tongues lilting to his ears with a rhythm and tone all their own that would push him along.

For some reason he couldn't possibly explain to himself, let alone someone else, he'd pulled the front door behind him so carefully that he might as well have been a ghost passing through. He was angry enough that it could just almost come down to not letting her get the best of him, not letting her know that he had gotten up in the middle of the night and dressed in perfect silence, pulling on his running clothes, adding a navy hoodie as an afterthought so he could carry his phone. He didn't usually take his phone on a run, but something told him he wouldn't be back in 30 minutes. Or an hour.

He'd laced his shoes too tight, but once he'd picked up a little speed everything but the burn faded away. The pound of his feet as they struck pavement was almost as loud as his heartbeat in his ears, almost enough to drown out the city around him. This alone should have been some sort of red flag, that he wasn't a part of the city anymore, not even a part of himself, but he just pushed past it and let the sweat trickle across his skin in strange patterns that made him shiver despite the steamy city air.

His rhythm faltered and time slowed as he saw the cyclist a second too late to correct his course. The guy shouldn't have been on the sidewalk, but late at night maybe he'd thought a little cut-through couldn't hurt anything. Stupidly Danny wondered if the man on the cycle had someone waiting at home for him, someone with soft hair and a smile like warm sunshine and absolutely no reason to believe he wouldn't be coming home tonight.

Bright yellow exploded in his vision, and Danny Castellano's last breath on earth was cut short by a sharp pull and the sudden impact with another body.

As Danny tried to breathe again, his chest struggling against the sheer force of gravity and the unexpected expulsion of every molecule of air in his lungs, the edges of his vision began to blacken ominously. Right in the center he saw bright green eyes shining with tears, and then nothing.

* * *

Notes:

I've been thinking about trying my hand at a crossover for a very long time and tonight seemed like the time to dive in. It's kind of training wheels for AU for me.

Comments are the absolute best, and I'm down to talk about either or both shows forever.

You can also find me on tumblr:


	2. Watching my every sound

"Holy shit! I thought you were a goner."

Danny heard her before he saw her. He was definitely breathing now, but every movement sent stabbing pains into his chest that radiated out into his arms. Before he even opened his eyes he knew he was crying again, but the fucking relief he felt washed away every vestige of embarrassment. He blinked a few times, vision blurring and clearing in rapid succession. This time the green eyes were accompanied by a look of relief. Her mouth moved again and it took him a moment to understand what she was asking. "Are you okay?"

He nodded and closed his eyes again. The buzz in his ears began to fade, and the sounds of the city filtered into his brain as Danny breathed in as slowly and deeply as possible. Somewhere in the distance he thought he could hear the ringing of a bell, possibly the cyclist still on the pavement on a mission to kill other New Yorkers going about their business, possibly just a figment of his imagination. The smells of the city began to break through - exhaust from a hundred thousand cars, the warm scent of something being baked, the subtle scents of somethings both hard to place and so familiar. He'd never thought about those small notes in the city air, the dark brown of soil that almost never overpowered the smells of industry, a thick and cloying smell that stopped right behind your teeth and could only be described as freshly printed money. He'd never be able to capture those small threads again, so he breathed in deeply once more before opening his eyes again.

A thick mane of red hair circled his savior's face like a halo. Real red, not bottle red. His eyes focused in on little details, like the fact that no amount of foundation could truly blend away the sprinkling of freckles that adorned her fair face like a constellation. And eyes he'd previously considered green were a grey green, set off by a ring of copper at the very center like a corona. She looked worried, but calm too, like she'd seen some things and was made of stern stuff indeed. He watched her lips form the words again. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm okay." He gave her a weak smile, but she just nodded and moved out of her crouch to offer him a hand up. He pulled himself up by her hand, but found himself a little less steady on his feet than he'd anticipated, and tilted awkwardly toward her. She caught him anyway and pulled him to her. Guiding him gently as though he were a child, she put his hand on a brick wall and then stepped away so he could right himself. Somehow she'd known that he'd rather have an anchor and a minute to catch his breath than to be held by a stranger. As the ground steadied beneath his feet he remembered the tears in her eyes when he'd blacked out. "Are _you_ okay?"

"I'm fine. You just knocked the breath out of me." Sure enough she didn't look shaken, just steady. It put him on the defensive, despite the fact that he knew he owed her his life.

"Hey, you're the one who pulled on me!"

"I pulled you out of the way of a cyclist that was about to cream you. He was wearing a helmet, you weren't. _Thank you_ is the appropriate response here."

Danny pushed down the urge to argue and tried to find his manners, a real feat when he felt so desperately vulnerable. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." She smiled at him, relief flooding her face again. His defensiveness drained away.

She just stood there quietly for what felt like an age as he tested out all of his faculties. Hearing and sight were back on line, and while his breathing was still a little fast it was even, and his heart rate had begun to drop to a normal range. He moved all his limbs experimentally and found that nothing was sprained or broken, everything loosening as the adrenaline washed away and he began to relax. "Seriously, thank you."

She shrugged. "Right place, right time."

Danny dragged the left arm of his hoodie across his forehead, gathering the cold sweat that threatened to drip into his eyes. He extended his right hand to her. "Dr Daniel Castellano."

"Erica." She smiled again, warm and genuine, as she took the proffered hand and gave it a decisive shake. "Close call there."

"I guess."

"It was. A close call." Her voice was firm, offering no real opening to debate. His own voice was shakier than he'd like, and hoarse from the unexpected strangling he'd received as she'd pulled him out of the way by his hoodie.

He just shook his head. "I'm sorry."

A little line appeared between her eyes, worry, but something else too, like she was trying to make a decision. "No big deal."

Something about her voice niggled at him, something strange. "You're not from around here." It came out as a statement rather than a question, but she nodded.

"Toronto. I'm here on business. That's why I'm out walking at all hours. The city sounds different and my partner snores. I couldn't sleep."

"He doesn't snore at home?"

"She," Erica corrected. "And I wouldn't know, we don't usually sleep together."

Danny's face drew into a puzzled expression and he saw it mirrored almost immediately in her own expression before her features relaxed as something dawned on her. "_Business_ partner. We were supposed to stay in the same hotel room like it was a fun girl's holiday. That's not quite how it's playing out, but we're only here another 2 days. She doesn't believe me when I say she snores. I love her, but she's got kind of a diva streak."

A smile of recognition broke across his face. Mindy would go to her grave swearing that she didn't snore, but sometimes it was so loud that she woke herself up, and then blamed it on him. Danny began to chuckle, felt the tension he'd been holding onto melt a little. "Yeah, I know someone like that."

"It's ridiculous, right?"

Danny nodded. The memory of a long night spent on his couch contemplating Mindy's snores bubbled to the surface of his mind. He had pulled the doors behind him as he left her curled on the right side of his bed, trying to give her some privacy, but her snores cut through the silence and kept him company as he replayed the night over and over. Things had never been straightforward between the two of them, but he had, until the moment she slid her arms around him, believed that they'd managed to find a friendship balance that they could live with. That he could live with. Something about the sounds of her sleeping, right there in his bed where he'd smell her scent for weeks afterward no matter how many times he washed the sheets, made it all too real. Amy had said out loud what he already knew to be true, and he'd known he'd never be able to get that illusion back

It had been a mistake to open the door to that memory because it was followed almost immediately by the memory of all the other sounds she made when she slept - snatches of conversations from her strange dreams, little hums of contentment, soft sighs. The laughter died in his throat and the next sound that came out of him was alarming, like a sob and gasp at the same time. Erica's eyes widened in surprise and she reached for his shoulder. "Hey, it's okay."

The embarrassing tremor had returned to his voice as he shook his head again. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm shaken up. I'm fine."

Erica frowned. "Why don't you let me buy you a coffee?"

"No, it's okay. I just need to walk it off, get a good night's sleep." He didn't know if he could face his apartment yet, but he couldn't stand to be the subject of a stranger's kindness right now. He just couldn't. "It was nice to meet you, I appreciate your help. Enjoy New York."

Danny turned and started walking back towards home, picking up speed a bit as he went. By the time she caught up with him she was out of breath. "Boy, you sure know how to run, don't you?" Erica panted as he slowed down and then finally stopped to watch her cautiously.

He knew she wasn't talking about his speed, or at least not entirely, and the shame of it pressed down on him, knocking the wind out of him all over again. She'd chased him down for a reason, and the way this complete stranger cut straight to his biggest fear about himself made him shift restlessly as she clung to his arm and tried to catch her breath. "Come on, let me buy you a coffee."

Tonight had turned into quite possibly the worst night of his life, and he just didn't have the patience to find out whatever it was that she was after. "Hey, I said thanks. I don't know what you want from me. Whatever it is you need, I don't think I can help you."

She straightened up and shook her head gently. "No, I don't want anything. In fact, I think I can help you."

"What makes you think I need your help?"

Erica's eyebrows raised slightly at the unexpected volume of his voice. "Well, for one you literally ran from a cup of coffee."

"Lady, I don't even know you..."

"And two," she cut him off abruptly, "I saw your face before you saw the guy on the bike. Almost getting killed was not the worst thing that's happened to you tonight. It's not even close. I don't know what that could have been, but whatever chased you out to the streets in the middle of the night will still be chasing you when you get home. So don't go home. Come have a cup of coffee with me and talk about it. Or don't talk about it. Just don't go back. You're not ready."

Danny felt his face crumple, but she didn't react, she just watched him expectantly and waited for an answer. He nodded silently and she took the lead, marching back the way they'd come toward a door he hadn't even seen even though he had to have passed it twice tonight. It just looked like a door to him, but he shrugged and followed her into what turned out to be a surprisingly nice, if a bit trendy, coffee shop. There wasn't a soul in the place, even behind the bar, and he couldn't see why it would be open at this hour, but something about the faded gold of the walls and the under counter lights made the place feel warm, soothing. Even the little monsters on the black posters that lined one of the walls didn't seem strange, especially once he said the name out loud. "Goblins?"

"Yeah," she said absently as she walked behind the counter herself like she owned the place.

"It is even open?"

"It's always open for me." Danny gave her a puzzled look and she expanded a little. "It's a friend's place, don't worry about it."

"I thought you weren't from around here," he countered.

"I'm not. Dave and Ivan know that I have to bring friends here now and then though, they won't mind. Let me make you something to drink. I'm better with espresso-based drinks than anything else, but something tells me you're not a vanilla latte guy. How about an Americano?"

"Sure." Danny shrugged. "So you're a barista? Or you own a coffee place?"

"Nope." Her voice was drowned by the sudden sound of the coffee grinder and he missed the rest of the sentence, but as she stopped the grinder and slotted the little filter full of freshly ground beans into the machine, she pulled a card from her pocket and flipped it onto the counter in front of him and promptly disappeared into a back store room. The card was white, plain black lettering with the only concession to embellishment a single pale grey watermark, the letter E in a swooping script.

She reappeared with a small carton of milk and turned back to her task, steaming milk as he watched in disbelief. "Is that what this is? You wanna shrink me?"

A cup of hot coffee was placed in front of him with a flourish and she replied with her back to him as she finished preparing her own latte. "No, I'm not a shrink."

He read the card aloud, "'Dr. Erica, the only therapy you'll ever need. Results guaranteed.' Sounds like a shrink to me."

She carried her cup around the bar and sat at the stool next to him, blowing at the steamy froth. "I'm not really like any kind of therapist you've ever been to."

"I've never been to any kind of therapist, and I'm not starting now." Danny shifted on the stool when her hand stopped him. The touch was light, but somehow it held him in place.

"You can go, but will you please hear me out first?" She looked so earnest and he was just so fucking tired. He nodded and she continued. "You are handsome, successful, probably pretty financially stable. I'm willing to bet you've been married, but you're not any more."

Danny frowned, but didn't say anything, so she kept going. "Over the course of the last decade most of your friends have peeled off and started their own families, fallen out of contact. You have a pretty supportive family, maybe to the point of invasive, but they all have lives of their own. You find yourself spending a lot of time alone, meals for one, too many hours at work, and starting to get a little too settled in your ways. You're lonely."

"This is just cold reading, I know about this."

Erica nodded in agreement. "It could be, but that doesn't mean you don't feel anything when you hear me say it out loud to you. I'm not here to scam you. I don't take payment for services, and I'm only here for another 38 hours, so I'm not offering real therapy. What I'm offering you is the chance to say what you've needed to say for a long time. You can't say it to whomever you're running from, so say it to me. I'm nobody, and I'm gone the day after tomorrow. Tell me."

"Say one thing to me that isn't generic bullshit. Say one thing to convince me that you have any idea what I'm going through or any clue what I could do to fix things."

"Okay." She closed her eyes for a second and drew in a big breath. "You don't think things can be fixed. You think you missed your chance to make things right, and you would trade anything in the world for a chance to just go back and do today over." Her eyes opened and she stared directly into his eyes. "You think you made a mistake tonight, not trying to kiss her, but failing to tell her the real reason why."

His voice failed him, barely a whisper in the quiet room. "What?"

Erica leaned back and clasped her hands in her lap. "I'm only here for a couple of days, and I wouldn't ordinarily offer such a brief window, but when I look at you I can already feel you letting go of yourself. I can help you, but I need a commitment. This is not traditional therapy, and you're going to want to turn away from it at some point, but if you will agree to do the work I'll help you change your life. Tonight. Do we have an agreement?"

Danny swallowed hard. If he'd lost Mindy...well he didn't have anything left to lose. "Yeah. I'll do it."

"Good." Erica smiled and picked her cup up again, bringing it tentatively to her lips and taking a small sip.

"So what do I do? You gonna hypnotize me? Should I lay down on the ground?"

"Why would you lay on the ground?"

Danny grimaced. "Nothing. Someone I know does that when she's sad."

"Why don't you tell me what happened tonight?"

"Okay. I...she's my best friend. We didn't always like each other, but I guess we kinda got used to each other, and then... more. She's the smartest, funniest, sexiest, kindest, weirdest, most impossible person I've ever met and when we were just friends we were okay. We tried dating and it didn't work, I just hurt her, and it has taken us months to get back to being friends. I know I shouldn't have tried to kiss her again. She said I just did it because she was all dressed up for her date, but that's not how it was. I wanted to tell her that's not how it was, it's just sometimes I have a problem telling someone what I really feel."

"And how do you feel?" Erica reached out to put her cup down, and pulled a napkin from one of the alumninum dispensers to wipe a couple of drops of coffee from the counter.

"I picked the wrong time to try and kiss her. It wasn't because someone else wanted her. I want her. I need her. I always have. I should have told her before she met someone else. I should have told her tonight. If she just knew that it wasn't about some guy, it was about her, she'd have stayed home. She'd have picked me. I know she feels the same way I do, I was just stupid about it. She thinks I didn't care about how she feels, but it's all I ever think about."

"So you would to it differently? You'd tell her you want her and she'd stay with you and everything would be okay?"

Danny looked up. "Yeah."

She nodded firmly. "Done."

For the second time tonight his vision began to darken, his hands suddenly cold. Just as he started to panic that he might have actually taken a hit to the head and was having some sort of stroke after the fact, he hit the ground and found himself on his hands and knees staring at deep pink carpet. The room swam into focus and he could hear Mindy, her voice tinny like she was shouting down a tunnel. He was in her office again, and he didn't even remember coming to work. He looked around, taking in the bright sunlight (when had he gone to sleep?)and her concerned face. She was wearing the same thing she had worn to work yesterday, which wasn't...wasn't what was happening. He looked down at his own clothes and realized with a start that he was wearing his old clothes too and it was suddenly clear that he was either dead and reliving his last day over as his life flashed before his eyes, or by some fucked up miracle he'd gotten his second chance.

He looked into Mindy's eyes and said the first thing that came to mind. "Holy shit."


	3. I go from day to day

"What the hell, Danny?" Mindy stood over him, her expression a mix of concern and confusion. "One minute you're telling me I have to come play Chinese checkers with you and the next you're flying through the air. I didn't even see you trip."

"I..." he began, realizing that he had absolutely no idea what had happened to him, much less how he'd explain it. "...tripped. I guess I tripped. I'm fine."

She rolled her eyes and offered her hand to help him up. "You are so dramatic. Only you would trip over your own feet and fall to your knees like you'd been shot."

"Why, what did I look like?" Danny tried to be inconspicuous as he picked himself up and scanned the room to make sure he was really where he thought he was. She was definitely wearing that weird bird shirt that he hated, and his own shirt had a little coffee stain that he'd been cleverly hiding with his coat all morning. He'd only brought one change of clothes to work that morning and if he could just make it to lunchtime he'd shower and change at the gym. This couldn't be happening. What if he'd just dreamed everything, trying to kiss her, then trying to flee? Almost getting killed? Agreeing to _therapy_? He sucked in a breath and let the relief wash over him.

Then he swallowed and the unexpected taste of coffee flooded his senses, like he'd only finished a cup a few minutes ago, which wasn't true. Well, it wasn't true for today, but if he was wrong about the dream and everything had happened with the laundry detergent and the cyclist and the weird coffee shop, he was still tasting coffee served by a redheaded stranger he wouldn't even meet until tonight. Which couldn't be true, right? The woman had told him she could help him fix this, then he'd felt cold, then he'd hit his knees 12 hours in the past. _What the hell?_

"Dr. Castellano?" Betsy's voice drew him back out of his head and away from Mindy. "Your next patient is here."

Danny blinked at her, a little slow to grasp what she was saying. He shook his head a little, as though that could clear it, and looked back at Mindy, who was regarding him with drawn brows. She had that look she got when she simultaneously understood and didn't understand something, which snapped him back to reality. He turned back to Betsy and gave her a weak smile. "Sure Bets. Could you show her to my office? I'll be right there."

He shot one last glance at Mindy as he moved toward the door. This was real. You can't dream an expression like that, it was all Mindy.

He couldn't remember anything about his next appointment, but as he approached the office Danny recognized the deep red waves and slim build of the woman perched in the chair opposite his desk and the reality of this unreal situation hit him like a gut punch. The door slammed behind him as he charged past her. "What the hell did you do to me?"

Erica sat back, giving him a calm, wry look that just made his blood boil. "Hello to you too."

He swung around to his side of the desk, hovering over his chair. Anxiety crackled over his skin like an electric current, making him too anxious to actually sit and a little too weak to stand. He thought he might puke. "Tell me the truth. Am I dead? Did I die out there? Are you an angel?"

"No, I'm not an angel."

"Is this purgatory?" His voice cracked, making him sound too emotional, but she was so placid he felt like all of his nervous energy was being sucked away from him, a feeling of calm settling behind it.

"I wouldn't know."

"Wait, you're not Catholic?"

"Jewish."

A horrifying though stung Danny as he stood there contemplating whether there were Jewish angels and if this was a punishment for missing Mass this week. "Oh God, who's gonna take care of Ma?"

"Hey, you need to calm down."

The panic was back twofold. When the fuck has telling someone to calm down ever calmed them down? "Calm down? Calm down? My head's bust open like a grape on Canal and my guardian angel is Jewish. And it turns out purgatory is getting stuck on a loop in the worst day of my entire life. Sure I'll 'calm down.'"

"Sit. Down." Erica's tone was firm but controlled, and something about her calm snapped him out of it. "You're not dead."

"I'm not dead," he repeated numbly.

"You're not dead." She shook her head decisively. "Are you always this dramatic?"

"Mindy says I..." Danny's voice trailed off and his legs started to buckle beneath him, forcing him to land heavily in his chair. "Oh God, Mindy. I'll never get to tell her. The last thing I did on earth was hurt her."

"No, you didn't."

"What?"

"Hasn't happened yet."

"What?" The question was softer now as the wheels started to spin in his head.

"None of that happened yet. You said that you could fix everything if you just had another chance. So here you are." For the first time Danny stopped to look directly in her eyes, finding them to be familiar. He'd seen that look a thousand times in Mindy's eyes right as the shit hit the fan in the delivery room and she switched from Mindy the coach to Mindy the healer. Erica tilted her chin down and set her jaw. "What's the plan?"

"I'm...I didn't do it yet?" Danny stood suddenly, rushing out of his office and across the reception towards Mindy's office. The door was open, but it was dark. "Has anyone seen Mindy?" His voice was louder than he'd expected it to be, clearly louder than anyone was expecting because Jeremy and Betsy exchanged a confused look, and Jeremy broke away from their conversation to approach Danny cautiously. "She's gone for the day. Did you need a consultation? I'm free."

Danny spun around, but when he stared into his own office he saw an empty chair. "Betsy, did you see my patient leave?"

"No, Dr Castellano. Did you want me to try and schedule another appointment for Mrs Fitzpatrick?"

"That's okay, Betsy. I, uh..." Danny hesitated. "No that's fine."

Danny wandered back toward his office slowly. Instead of circling around to his own chair he sat in the chair where Erica had been only moments ago and closed his eyes. Jeremy followed Danny into the office, closing the door softly behind him. "Danny, what's going on? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Do I have any more patients today?"

Jeremy frowned and leaned forward to push the intercom button on the phone. "Betsy, does Danny have any further appointments scheduled today?"

"Dr Reed, he has one at 3:10 and another at 3:40."

"Thank you Betsy."

Danny blinked stupidly and tried to refocus on his friend. "Jeremy, can you take those? Please? You know I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important."

"Sure." Leaning back, Jeremy crossed his arms and fixed Danny with a curious stare. "Danny, are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm not." Danny stood abruptly again and grabbed his coat from the hook behind his door. "But I will be."

. . . . .

He'd been standing in front of her door for about 5 minutes now. He knew he just needed to lift his hand and knock, but when he thought about what happened the first time – seeing the disappointment and confusion in her eyes as she'd pushed him away, listening to her lock up and make her way down the hall to meet another man while he'd stood just on the other side of his own door, his fingernails cutting into his palms, feeling sick as the sound of someone else making her gasp cut through the night - he couldn't do it. He heard her phone ring from inside the apartment, then the soft lilt of her laughter - again her date laughter, not the way she really laughed. Not husky-deep with tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, not followed by hiccups or accompanied by a playful shove. Not the laughter that took his breath away.

Danny swallowed the memory and knocked. He'd done this before, but when the door swung open he was suddenly aware that he really wasn't prepared for this. Prepared for her. Light notes of lavender and vanilla hung in the air, and the fading daylight from the windows gave her a halo as she stood in the doorway.

He'd planned to start by apologizing. He'd planned to tell her that when he'd said she was his best friend what he'd really meant to say that she was his entire world. Tell her that he knew that his fear of ruining this ruined this. Every word of it dried up on his tongue as he looked down into her eyes. She was barefoot, and his whole body remembered how perfectly she fit right under his arms. She wore pink (or electraberry or sugarplum) and her hair was so soft as he threaded his fingers into it and pulled her lips to his. It was only when he felt her shoulders tense against his forearms and her balance shift that he realized he'd done it again. He let her go before she could push him, gasping as his own fucking stupidity and desperation flooded out of him, threatening to take them both down.

"What are you doing?" Her voice was softer this time, still surprised, but the sharp edge that had cut him so deeply last night (last time) was not there. His heart fluttered in his chest. This time would be different. This time would make her see.

"Mindy, I love you." The words were a surprise to him. He hadn't mean to say that, but he knew as the words fell into the room and shattered across the space they'd been so carefully cultivating that they were true. He loved her.

"What?" She was touching her lips, the gesture so like she was blocking them, blocking him and he felt ashamed.

"I love you. I want to be with you." He had to turn, look at anything else but the growing confusion on her face. "That night when I said I have to have you... I thought that meant at any price."

"Danny, stop." She was frowning now. "You can't just charge at me when you 'have to have' me. You let me go and I've been trying to put everything back together for months. Now that we're friends again you suddenly 'have to have' me again? Do you know how fucked up that is?"

"You're right, and I'm sorry. I should have said that first. I'm sorry, Mindy. I'm sorry. I fucked everything up." He started to reach for her hand and thought better of laying his hands on her. That's how he kept ruining these things and he was so close to doing it again. "I haven't ever once asked you what you want and I'm sorry. Please tell me what you want."

Mindy stared at him, her face unreadable. He felt it all slipping away. She'd told him that she got to decide, and he'd just rushed at her again, like a prize to be won. He swallowed hard, breathing through his nose in an attempt to hold back the tears that threatened to choke him. She stepped toward him, eyes intense, lips pursed as she reached for his face. "You, dummy. I want you."

Her lips were as soft as he remembered, but her hands were rough as she pulled him to her. She fit right under his arms, just the way she had before. This time he let her lead, mirroring her motions, only responding to what she asked of him. The trip to the bedroom was surprisingly long as she dragged him by the very clothes she was tearing off of him, and when they hit the edge of the bed they toppled over, a tangle of tongues and legs and crushing need. She guided his hands to her thighs, prompting him to slide her dress up. "Yeah?" he asked, but she responded by pulling at his belt buckle and unfastening it in one swift jerk.

He'd tried so hard to hold his own feelings in check, but his body caught fire and there was no hiding how much he wanted her. She unzipped and unbuttoned his jeans and slipped her hand into his boxers. He whimpered helplessly as she squeezed him lightly and sucked his bottom lip between her teeth. Then she pushed him away and struggled up out of the bed, leaving him exposed and confused. When she pulled the dress up and over her head he felt a stab of unexpected jealousy. She was wearing a matching bra and panty set, deep purple and adorned with a little black lace. It wasn't meant for him. She nodded at him, and he shrugged out of his half-unbuttoned shirt and quickly wriggled out of his jeans, but he couldn't get the image of her in this bed with Charlie out of his head, especially not now that he could imagine her taking charge, pushing another man down and straddling him the way she was straddling Danny right now.

He shook away the image and concentrated on the softness of her skin across her ribcage, and the way she shivered as his hands slid into the cups of her bra. He'd had so little time to learn her body, but every fiber of his being knew the exact weight of her breasts in his hands, how the underside felt full and warm, the tops always very lightly bitter to the tongue with whatever dusting powder she used. His focus was drawn away abruptly, to the warmth between her thighs, something he hadn't learned in their time together, not really. His fingers knew every fold of her, but they'd never come this close to the real deal before, and she burned white hot where her wetness had soaked through the thin silk of her panties and the fabric now stuck to his exposed cock. Her breathing was heavy as she rubbed herself against him, and he held himself motionless, waiting for her to take whatever she needed from him. He felt every muscle in her body tighten as she came, quaking against him as lay there frozen, afraid to move and break the spell. She saved him the trouble and shifted to pull her panties off and his boxers down, settling again right over him, but only just. He slipped his hands out of her bra and cupped her face again. "I love you, Mindy. I want to be with you."

As she leaned down to kiss him she rolled her hips and pushed down, taking him in slowly. He didn't want to respond so quickly, but he'd spent the last 24 hours convinced that they would never ever be able to come back from the things he'd done, and he'd been holding on too long already. When it was over they lay curled together, sweat drying on their bodies, and she finally spoke. "Why now? Why didn't you tell me before?"

It was a question he should have expected, but just like the moment when she'd opened the door he found himself unprepared for her. "I thought I'd lost you."

She went eerily still, and he struggled even to hear her breath over the sound of his own heart pounding in his ears. "You didn't lose me, Danny, you pushed me away."

"I know. I'm so sorry. I got scared, and I got stupid and I ran. I thought we could be friends again, but then you started dating that cop..."

She sat bolt upright in the bed and stared at him. "Wait, you did this because of Charlie?"

"No, I did this because of you. Me and you."

Her mouth was a grim line as she shook her head. "You did this because of you."

"No I want you. I always did."

"But you broke up with me."

"Because I was scared."

"And now you're not scared?"

"Of course I'm scared. But I'm more scared to be without you than to be with you."

"You don't want to be with me. You want me to be with you. There's a difference." Her nostrils flared and her eyes went a little unfocused. "I'm not something to have, Danny."

"I know that. I'm sorry. I don't mean it that way."

"I think you do. I think you made your choice and now you just want to take it back to stop me from finding something real."

"This is real. It's real."

"No. It was real. And then you changed your mind." Mindy stood and began to gather her clothes. "I don't know why I fell for it. You told me once that guys don't break up with girls they secretly want to date."

"No, I didn't mean that. I mean I didn't mean me. I meant Cliff."

She turned on him, eyes sharp and clear. "Right. Cliff breaks up with me because he doesn't want me, but when you break up with me, I should just give you some time and you'll change your mind."

He was up on his feet, following her through the apartment powerless as he watched her scoop up her keys, jam her phone into her handbag. He didn't know if it was just because he was naked, or if this was what if felt like to have all of the hope in your life drain out of your body at once, but he felt a chill, and his voice shook as he pleaded with her, "No, I won't change my mind."

"Danny, you just did." Her hand was on the doorknob and she shook her head. "I'm not gonna do it anymore. I get to decide."

As the door swung shut the room began to spin. Danny shut his eyes tight and murmured a short prayer, the only words he had left before he hit the floor. "Help me."

* * *

Notes:

Thanks again to Smapdi for fixing the messy bits. I have clearly started to ignore my own spellcheck. I just assume it's mad at me when I spell things the American way and I pretend it isn't there.


	4. She must be worth losing

"No, no, no, no, no." Danny took in his surroundings: yellow walls again, stacks of clean cups, paper packets of sugar scattered where he'd lost his balance a little and flailed as the cold feeling evaporated and he was left feeling strangely warm for a man who'd been naked only moments ago.

Erica was sitting at the bar as though they'd never left; like he hadn't just relived the worst night of his life and somehow made a bigger mess than he'd made the first time. The only thing that convinced him that what had just happened to him was real was the slightest bitter taste on his tongue, the ghost of dusting powder he'd tasted enough times to ensure he'd never, ever forget it. It didn't matter how or why it happened, but it had happened. And he had to do something now before Mindy walked away for good.

"I gotta go back. You gotta send me back. _Please._" The last desperate word rang too loudly in the empty room.

"What if I told you it was a one time thing? That you can't go back?"

She calmly sipped her drink as Danny felt his second chance slip away. "What?"

"You got one more shot than anyone else ever gets."

"No, I didn't." Danny's feet moved almost of their own accord, the adrenaline pushing him as he tried to get a grip on what had happened. She was right, he'd used up his second chance and now he'd not only destroyed his opportunity to get Mindy back, he'd never have her in any part of his life. The exact thing he'd warned her about, that they'd have the fight so bad they couldn't even salvage a friendship had happened, and he'd done this to them. "I mean, I did. But I made it worse."

Erica watched him pace nervously, her eyes sharp but full of concern. "What happened?"

"I did everything right. I told her everything. I told her I loved her. I told her I wanted to be with her." Danny stopped and stared at her, his eyes wild as he went over what happened again and again in his head. He'd had her in his hands. He'd told her everything, and she'd believed him and she'd made love with him. It was real. It happened. And then she'd just changed her mind.

"What did she say?"

Danny's cheeks flushed red and his eyes dropped to stare at the floor. "We didn't really talk."

Erica cocked her head inquisitively. "Is that how you usually solve your problems?"

"No." The single syllable fell flatly between them and he could feel her eyes on him which made him strangely angry. There was a reason he didn't go for therapy. He just felt like someone's experiment. How was that empowering? Therapy is for the therapists.

"What was different this time?"

"Everything. Well, not everything. I kissed her. But I told her I love her. I told her I messed up when I broke up with her. I asked her what she wanted." Danny rubbed his face with one hand, trying to remember every second of it before it could slip away from him,. With his eyes closed he could see Mindy in that doorway again. He could pretend for a second that he could follow her back out that door and say whatever it is she needed to hear. Anything to make her stay. "Please, you've got to send me back. I didn't even get to fix it."

Erica ignored the last request and kept pushing. "What did she want?"

"Me. She wanted me." The room felt stifling and he struggled to breathe as he pictured Mindy's face when she'd told him. He exhaled heavily. "Well she did until I just fucked it all up again."

"How did you fuck it up?"

"She thinks I just did it to stop her from finding something real."

"And did you?"

The anger rose again and Danny felt his fists clench. "What? No! I did it for her. I want to be with her."

Erica regarded him with a thoughtful expression, but didn't respond. Danny felt the silence grow and continued. "I know why she thinks it isn't real, and that's my fault too."

"How?"

He stopped pacing and spun on her. "Are you just going to keep asking questions?"

"No."

"Well, fucking say something!" Danny's voice was still raised, but the adrenaline he'd been running on had begun to leech out of him and he was just so tired. He slumped back onto the stool and picked up the business card he'd discarded what felt like a week ago. "I don't know what happened, and I don't know how I know it's real, but you made me time travel and everything is worse than it was."

"Is everything really worse?"

"Yes." The word began as a cry, but just died in his throat. He didn't have any yelling left in him. The fury wasn't changing anything. He didn't know that anything he did ever changed anything.

"Is it worse for her? Is this night ending differently for her?"

"I don't know."

"Why not?"

"She said the same thing she said last time. 'I get to decide.' Things were different this time, but they ended the same way." His hands shook as he took a sugar packet and folded down the corners carefully. He had the urge to rip it open and pour the sugar out, every single grain. "It's worse though, I know it's worse. She's never gonna believe me. I told her once when we were fighting that guys don't break up with girls they want to be with and she thinks that's what happened. She just won't believe me, and even worse I did this to myself."

Erica seemed to sense that he didn't have any fight left. Her voice was oddly soothing in the still room. "Why did you say that?"

"She was chasing after this guy Cliff. He was awful and he just gave up on her at the first real problem they had. He didn't even talk to her. He broke up with her, and she couldn't see how stupid it was to keep going after a guy who will break up with you the first time something goes wrong."

"How did you two break up, then?"

A sudden wave of guilt washed over Danny. "That was different. Cliff broke up with her because he didn't trust her. I broke up with her because I didn't trust me.

"So the intent was different, but the outcome was the same?"

Danny rubbed his face again. "I don't know, maybe."

"So from her point of view how was it different? You might have meant something else but all she can see is someone else who didn't want to invest in her."

"Hey, whose side are you on?"

"I'm not on anyone's side. I'm just trying to understand why you changed your mind. Clearly she doesn't see the difference, so make me understand." Erica leaned back on the bar and crossed her arms.

"I didn't change my mind. I was just stupid. I shouldn't have broken up with her in the first place. I let some past stuff get in my head. I just shouldn't have broken up with her." Danny stopped to think for a minute. Maybe if he could make a person who didn't even know all the details of the situation understand what happened, he could convince Mindy.

"Do you think it would have really changed anything? The things that made you break up with her the first time would still be true."

"No, you don't understand. We were really happy. I mean really happy. I let it get out of hand because I just didn't want to open that up to all the assholes in our office who'd have just tried to get involved when we were doing just fine as we were."

"So you broke up with her because you didn't want to go public?"

"Yes. No! I broke up with her because I was right and when they found out she was dating someone they really laid into her. I was stupid and I let them convince me that everything would blow up and we'd just end up hurting each other so much we couldn't ever be friends again. I couldn't lose her. I CAN'T lose her. I have to have her in my life. We'd never be in this situation if I'd just told everyone about us. They'd have gotten over it, I know they would." The lump in his throat threatened to choke him and his vision swam. "I killed our last chance to do that tonight."

Erica's brow furrowed and she sucked in a big breath. "Danny?"

He couldn't hear her over the ringing in his ears. He'd lost Mindy. He'd done this to them. "Yeah?"

"It wasn't a one time thing."

* * *

Notes:

Chapter 6 on deck, later today or tomorrow.


	5. Dreamed a little dream

As the voices around him grew louder, Danny knew where and when he'd been sent this time.

"Mindy, you keep on dating these men in our building, it always ends in disaster. You can't even take the stairs 'cause you're afraid you're going to run into Cliff. What happens when you break up with a doctor in our office?" Jeremy was in full lecture mode, towering over Mindy who looked increasingly miserable. She caught Danny's eye for a split second, and he knew he had to stop this before this went any further.

"Stop!" Danny jumped up and stepped between Jeremy and Mindy. "It's me. Me and Mindy."

Jeremy's eyebrows raised, incredulous. "What?"

"Are you KIDDING ME?" Morgan looked surprisingly furious at a revelation that had absolutely nothing to do with him. It didn't have anything to do with anyone here, which is exactly why Danny had balked at going public the first time. This was his second chance though, and he was not going to let them heap their judgement on her when this was his fault too. Mindy stared at him from the couch, eyes wide and mouth shut.

"Thank you!" Peter started to hop up for a victory lap, but winced as he took the first step. "I am never keeping a secret ever again. Especially another boring secret. Call me if you like, sleep with the president, or murder somebody."

Mindy gave Peter an irritated look. "You just said you won't keep a secret!" She shook her head. "You know what, it doesn't matter. "

"You knew about this?" Jeremy's voice had gone very flat as he looked to Peter, then back to Mindy.

Peter shrugged. "Yeah, I found out back when they got meningitis."

"Mindy, you had meningitis too when you went into hospital? You told me it was 'a lady's complaint.'" Jeremy was starting to sound irritated again, which didn't bode well for the plan of getting them to butt out. Danny jumped in to defend her.

"Leave her alone. You shouldn't have fallen for that."

"I knew it," Morgan jumped in. "Your period wasn't due for weeks!"

"I'm sorry I lied. We had only been on a couple of dates, and it's none of your business. Danny said you guys would butt in, and he was right. Leave us alone." Mindy leaned back and crossed her arms. Danny wanted desperately to touch her, make sure she was real.

Jeremy's voice drew him back to reality. "You know, Danny, I expected this from Mindy. Not you."

"What do you mean?" Danny's hands clenched tightly. If he said anything else about Mindy, Jeremy was gonna get a fat lip.

Jeremy's face took on a particularly stern look, which only made Danny angrier. "You're senior partners. You've both opened us up to huge legal, professional and financial risks."

"Okay, now you're just being dramatic," Mindy rolled her eyes.

"No, I'm being practical." Jeremy sighed. "I didn't ask to be the managing partner, but apparently no one else has any self control, so it's just as well. Do you know how many months it took us to recover from Shulman's retirement? From your jaunt to Haiti? You don't because you never asked. When partners in the practice make rash decisions there are consequences. You do remember that you're responsible for the business continuity? It's not just that there are dozens of people on our payroll who rely on the practice to continue to be profitable, but there are hundreds of patients who have put their trust in us to deliver a high quality continuous service."

Mindy sat up suddenly. "Hey, my patients are my priority. Don't talk to me like I don't care about being a good doctor."

"They aren't though, are they Mindy? You break up with Tom and you end up in jail. You break up with Casey and we end up embroiled in a sexual harassment lawsuit. You let your personal life bleed all over your professional life and now the two of you are in this together? At this point I fear what will happen when you two break up. An assassination? Perhaps an explosion of some sort?"

Danny had heard enough. He hadn't stepped in the first time when he should have, but he could stop this. "Stop. Not that it's any of your business, but it's not like that. We're not going to explode."

"Danny, you were already a partner back when Mindy and I had our... dalliance. You remember how poorly that ended."

Danny frowned. He hated to be reminded of that, and he really hated the idea that there was any comparison. "That was different. You didn't love her, you never meant for it to go anywhere."

"What, and you do love her?" Jeremy gave him another of his infuriating dry looks and Danny reacted before he thought.

"Yeah, I do!"

The whole room went perfectly quiet. Danny could feel all of them staring, but the only face he could see was hers. Her voice was tiny in the silence. "Danny?"

Danny knelt before her and looked her right in the eye. "I love you, Mindy. I think I've loved you for a long time and I didn't know it."

As the rest of them shifted uncomfortably at being unexpectedly in the middle of an intimate moment that was not their own, Peter snapped out of it. "Guys, I think we should go."

Jeremy's face was still red, but he held his tongue. Morgan opened his mouth, but Betsy pulled his elbow, interrupting the thought and leading him away. Mindy stood and silently made her way to the bedroom, bustling around and handing their coats out as Danny followed Beverly around, helping her collect bottles. He kind of wanted to ask Beverly what she was doing, but it hardly mattered now. As he held the door open Danny could hear quiet voices in the corridor as they started gossiping amongst themselves. The last to go as always, Morgan turned one last time, but Danny gave him a gentle shove and pushed the door shut then flipped the lock.

He was still on edge as he approached the bedroom door, acutely aware of the last time he'd stood in her apartment, unable to say anything other than 'I'm sorry' as tears made tracks on her face that she didn't even wipe away. He'd stayed up that night thinking about the last thing she'd asked him. He'd meant to tell her that he was sorry he'd let her down, but he could hear the whole conversation over and over in his head and he knew it must have sounded like 'I'm sorry I kissed you' or 'I'm sorry I started this,' when neither was true. Danny Castellano was uniquely bad at apologies, and he couldn't blame her for the way she'd built a careful distance between them after that night.

He found her sitting on her bed, staring down at her hands where they lay folded in her lap. His heart pounded so hard he could barely breathe, and he wondered vaguely how many more adrenaline rushes he could ride before his body gave up. He sat down beside her and fought the urge to take her hand. He'd rushed to kiss her last time he'd tried to make things right, and somehow along the way he'd made things so much worse. The memory of the kiss twisted his gut tight, and the train of thought led him to the way she'd looked at him when she'd said she wanted him, the way she'd felt beneath him, the way she'd sounded as they'd moved together. His body betrayed him and he sighed unconsciously, finally drawing her attention. Her eyes were so soft and surprised still that he felt the tension start to melt away. "Mindy, I..."

"Wait." She shifted to face him, reaching out and taking his face in her hands. They were warm and dry, and he was suddenly conscious of how clammy his own hands were. She held his face firmly in place as she searched his eyes, biting her lip in concentration. After everything that had happened to them, then happened again, he found he was unafraid to meet her stare, but he swallowed hard as he waited for her to speak. "You love me."

It was a statement, not a question. He didn't know why, but something about the resolve in her voice made him nervous again. He nodded in her hands and she let them fall back into her lap. He rushed to fill the silence. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have tried to hide us. I knew they'd react badly and I was afraid of that, but not as afraid of it as I am of hurting you. I'm so sorry."

"They really went for us, didn't they?" She smiled wanly.

"Yeah, but that doesn't matter now. We're out, we can stop sneaking around and they'll just get over it. All I want is to be with you."

Her eyes were still soft as she leaned in and kissed him. The fear started to subside, replaced by hunger, and he lunged for her. It had only been hours since he'd been able to hold her, but it felt like a lifetime. Too long to be without her. His hands slid over the weird leathery sleeves on her jacket, too smooth and cool to the touch, but she felt so solid and so real beneath that he shook off the feeling that she'd slip away.

He felt her fingers alight on his chest, barely there, but firm as she pushed him away. As he opened his eyes he could see the softness in her face had turned to sadness.

"Danny, Jeremy's right."

"What? No. Jeremy's just being a drama queen. We're going to be fine. We're going to be perfect. I promise." He reached for her too quickly, his hand catching her earring awkwardly as he tried to cup her face. "I love you."

"Danny, please. Listen to me." She frowned, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. "Everything Jeremy said about me is true. I jump into things. Sometimes for the wrong reason. I let what feels good right now stop me from thinking about what is right for the long term."

He reached for her hand squeezed her fingers tightly. "This is the long term. I'm all in. We're not gonna ruin anything."

"It's not about that, Danny. Maybe we can make it, maybe we can't, but I didn't see until tonight that all these things I've done have added up to me being a pretty shitty doctor."

Danny shook his head. "You're not. You're the best doctor I know. You care so much about people that it's annoying. That's why I love you."

Mindy smiled at his joke and nodded sadly. "Danny, I love you too."

"Then don't do this. I can make you happy. Just let me try. I have to have you in my life."

"I'm always going to be in your life. You are my best friend." Her hand withdrew to her lap again and he knew he was losing her all over again.

"Mindy, listen to me. Listen to me. You're a great doctor. Your patients love you. Don't let one guy's opinion stop you from doing what you want to do. You want me. I know you do." He could feel his whole body vibrating with the fear of what she was going to say next. She'd told him she wanted him. He could convince her.

"Danny, I am doing what I want to do. I don't want to hurt you, but I can't keep changing myself to make a relationship work."

"I'll change. You don't have to change anything. I'll change anything you want." His eyes stung with tears, and he didn't even care. He'd thought about how she'd been hurt when he'd let her go, over and over he'd replayed the conversation in his head, and felt the weight of every tear that spilled that night as he went about his day. It was nothing compared to this. He'd been wrong about how much it hurt her, because this felt like dying. She was going to let him go.

"If you change everything, you won't be the man I admire so much."

"Admire?"

The first tears finally spilled from her eyes, and just like that night long ago she didn't try to wipe them away. "I have to do this, Danny. I know I can really be something, if I stop getting in my own way."

"You are something." A sob tore from him as he began to cry. "You're mine."

"No, Danny. I'm mine." Tears streamed down her face and she turned away. "Please go. I can't do this right now. Please."

Danny stood numbly, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He hadn't cried like this since he was a child. Not even when Christina left him. His feet knew the way to the door, and that simple mercy spared him the agony of having to think about what was happening to him right now. He'd changed everything and nothing. The doorknob was cold under his fingertips and he raised his other hand to undo the lock and pull. As Danny stepped over the threshold he thought one last time about turning back and trying one more time to convince her that they could make it work, but when his foot hit the floor he noticed it was unfamiliar tile and by the time he turned back toward her apartment the door slammed shut. Second chance over.


	6. There's no one here dear

Danny stood with his back to the door, the room in front of him familiar gold and coffee-scented. The words to describe what had happened this time just formed a lump in his throat. He was too tired to think about it, too tired to talk about it, and way too tired to have lived through it. Erica watched him from behind the counter with a contemplative look. To her credit she didn't ask him about the tears drying on his face, or the way he gasped for each breath. She just walked up and reached behind him to lay her hand on the door. "I think it's time for you to get some sleep."

He nodded dumbly and let her turn him with gentle pressure on his shoulder to face the door. She squeezed his shoulder once as she pushed him through the doorway and he found himself staring at his own bedroom, the windows still dark and his bed unmade from the last time he got up to go jog his anger away. Silently he walked to the window and shut it, unsure of the time and whether Mindy might actually even be next door with her guest or if whatever had just happened would have had the net effect of changing that too. Maybe God was merciful, and when he woke up at least he wouldn't have to face the reality where he'd tried to kiss his beautiful best friend when she'd tried to hand him laundry detergent. Maybe the breakup in her bedroom this time had been easier to recover from, and he'd wake up to a world where his original dream had come true – that they'd gotten over everything and she was happy. He knew now he could stop fighting if she could just be part of his life that he regretted, but a part that was still there.

As he collapsed onto the bed fully clothed he thought about what a small, stupid dream that was, that he would just be able to live parallel with the life he wanted. Danny Castellano always dreamed the wrong dreams.

. . .

He could tell by the angle of the sun when he woke that he'd overslept. His pillowcase stuck to his face where he'd fallen asleep face-first with his mouth wide open and drooling. As he struggled up off the bed he could hear his phone buzzing on the carpet where the contents of his pockets had clearly emptied onto the floor from his hoodie some time in the night. 12 missed calls.

He'd have to call the practice and tell them...something. Maybe just that he was sick. If Jeremy wouldn't let Mindy get away with heartbreak days, he definitely wasn't gonna let Danny. Hoping he could buy just a little longer to try and wake up, he chickened out of calling and just sent Jeremy a text. The reply came immediately with a little coda: Call Mindy. She's freaking out, which is extremely irritating.

Thoughts swirled to the surface as Danny stumbled toward the bathroom to begin his morning routines. Maybe he'd be able to face a phone call once he'd had a shower, but right now he was trying to separate what had happened from the what if's he'd re-lived last night. Or dreamed. No, he was too tired for that to have been a dream. Maybe he needed to go to church, see if that could clear his head. Maybe ask Father Frank if there were Jewish angels.

By the time Danny was out of the shower he almost felt ready to hear Mindy's voice again. Almost. He cradled the phone in his hands trying to imagine which scenario would be worse, the one where he'd just humiliated himself by trying to kiss her or the one where they'd made love and she'd stormed out. In both instances she'd been convinced that he didn't think about what she wanted and maybe that was something they didn't come back from either way. She saved him the trouble of having to reach out by calling him first, the unexpected buzzing of the phone in his hands startling him out of his thoughts.

"Mindy?"

"Danny! What the hell is wrong with you?"

Danny swallowed hard. "I'm fine. Just taking a sick day."

"You're never sick."

"Well, I'm sick today. I'm just gonna go back to sleep, okay?"

"Danny, is this because?" she let the question hang. "I know we had a fight last night, but you don't have to be a drama queen about it."

"A fight?" he asked tentatively, a silent prayer running over and over in his head that he'd simply embarrassed them with an unsolicited kiss and not the other, more complicated past. He didn't know which fight they'd had or what he was responding to, but the important thing was that she was still talking to him.

"Don't keep trying to pretend it was a joke. You tried to kiss me and it was weird, but we can get past this." She paused and continued, her voice just a little more formal than before. "I know we're still in a weird place, but I'm ready to move on and I'm going to move back to my place and give us a little space."

"Okay." His voice was flat with the realization that whatever he thought happened last night might not have happened.

"Listen, I'm at home right now."

Your place? The idea that she might be next door made his stomach flip.

"My actual apartment. I have been puked on by queasy preggos twice today and I needed another change of clothes. Why don't you meet me for lunch? I know you're not sick so don't pretend you can't."

"Mindy, I'm really not up to it." The answer was honest. Somehow it would have been better if all those things had happened. He couldn't spend his lunch break watching her dissect a sandwich to pick out every molecule of lettuce when all he could think about was the fact that she might have wanted him, if things had been different. If they'd spent last night together, and had the other fight at least they'd have shared that. At least once he'd have been able to show her how much she meant to him. At least he would know that she'd shown him too and meant it. At least he'd have told her he loved her, once.

"Danny. I told you the night I broke up with you that I would always be in your life."

"What?"

"I'm not willing to let a stupid fight get in the way of that. We should talk. We can't work like this and Jeremy's already way too smug to let him be right about our breakup causing some sort of implosion for the practice. Come on. I'll let you pick the place."

As the pieces fit together, he realized that some of what happened had stuck. They'd still broken up, months ago, but it wasn't his breakup. It was hers. ""Mindy, I can't. I'll just see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Damnit, Danny. I just want us to get over this. Please."

That stupid little please undid whatever it was that had been holding him together until now. All he could see was her face as she begged him to walk away. It had been months for her, but it was moments ago for him and he couldn't separate how he felt when she sent him away then from the way she'd sent him away when he tried to kiss her and the way they'd never be able to get over any of this. "I can't get over it, Min. I don't want to get over it."

His voice shook, and to his relief her voice was so low when she replied that he knew she was struggling too. He didn't want her to hurt, but he was tired of feeling like he was alone in this. "You have to, Danny. You have to."

"I am trying, Min. Every single day I try, and every single day I'm reminded of how much I've lost. Maybe there was a time when I thought we could just go back to where we were when we were friends, but I don't think we can."

Her voice cracked as she spoke and he knew she was definitely crying now. "Why did you kiss me, Danny? Why did you even start this?"

"I'm sorry," he whispered as she hung up on him. He knew he could only make it worse, but he couldn't live with the sheer misery of the situation; Mindy at home alone, crying again because of something he'd done or said. Danny stuffed the phone into his back pocket and grabbed his hoodie again, realizing only as he stepped out the front door and heard the security lock click into place that his keys were still on the bedroom floor.

As it happened, the problem was moot. Sun streamed through the windows of the cafe as he tripped forward and was caught by a small redheaded man with stubble and round blue eyes. They stared at each other in surprise for a few moments before they heard a voice cut in from nearby. "Throw that one back, Dave. Too small."

The redheaded guy let go of Danny with a weak smile. "You okay?"

Danny nodded and looked around for the only person who could explain what was going on. "Have you see Erica?"

"Erica? I thought she was still in New York." A big guy with dark glasses wrapped his arm around the redhead as he approached. "Dave, have you seen her?"

Danny's brow wrinkled with confusion. "Wait, what?"

"Why don't you go upstairs, see if they're back?" Dave suggested and pointed to a door Danny hadn't seen the night before.

"Okay?" Danny turned back a couple of times as he walked toward the door, catching the couple staring at him. He could hear them bickering quietly as he made his way up the stairs. "I wasn't going to keep him." "You are a married man." "Like you'd ever let me forget that."

Danny had only a moment to look around the offices upstairs before Erica came tumbling through from another door. "Sorry about that. Entirely my fault. I'm glad you got to meet Dave and Ivan though."

"Who?"

"The guys who own this place. They're old friends. Why don't you come sit down in my office?" Erica gestured at a third door and led him to an office that looked way too big for the floorplan of the coffee place. Books lined every wall and the color scheme was not unlike something Mindy would choose, which made Danny suddenly furious that he'd been pulled out of his own plans again by this woman.

"How do you do this stuff? I thought you were like a time traveler, but now I'm not sure what you are. I keep walking through doors and ending up in the wrong place."

"I'm sorry about that. If you would believe it, the door thing is much easier than the thing where you get cold and then get dropped into your own body."

"What?" He turned away from the bookshelves and stared at her.

Erica lifted one shoulder in a kind of noncommital gesture. "Trust me, the doors are easier. Did you get some sleep?"

"Yeah I got some sleep. Then I woke up and the stuff that shouldn't be different is different and the stuff that is different shouldn't be different."

"How so?"

"I mean nothing changed. You sent me back to fix things and everything's the same. Only I don't know if everything that happened to me is the same as what happened to her."

"Isn't that just how everyone feels?" Erica finally sat in her own chair, leaving him standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.

"What?"

"I mean, no matter how you experience something, you can't know if someone else had the same experience."

"No, that's not true. If I was there and she was there then we'd remember the same thing and at least I could talk to her about it."

"You could talk to her about it now."

"No, I can't." Danny raked his fingers through his hair in frustration.

"Why not? Tell me what happened when you went back to the breakup."

"She broke up with me."

"Why?"

"Because everyone stuck their nose in, like I knew they would."

"Is that what she said?"

"No, she said that she jumped into our relationship for the wrong reasons. She said she couldn't keep changing to make a relationship work."

"That sounds pretty reasonable to me."

"But I didn't ask her to change. I don't want her to change."

"That's not up to you, though."

"I know that!"

"Do you? You've gone back to fix two regrets and in first one you tried to get her to change her mind. This time you went back to change your own mind, but when she made a decision you didn't agree with you are still talking about it in the context of what you want. You didn't ask her to change. You don't want her to change. I'm going to ask you the same thing I asked you last time. What did she want? Last time you said she wanted you. What did she want this time?"

He wanted so badly to remember it differently, that she'd said she wanted him. What she'd actually said was I'm mine. And he just didn't listen to her. His voice failed him as he croaked out the answer he didn't want to admit was true. "Herself. She chose herself."

"And you think she's wrong?"

"No." Danny finally slumped into the chair across from Erica. "I'm such an asshole."

"You're not an asshole, Danny. You're just hurting. Sometimes it's hard to see past that. You need to stop punishing her for the way you feel, and you need to stop punishing yourself."

"I am an asshole. I'm the one who got us in this mess in the first place. She's the one who thinks she jumps into things without thinking about them, but I'm the one who did this to us. I dragged her out to see my dad. I stopped her from getting back together with a guy she'd wanted for a long time. I shouldn't have kissed her."

"Do you think that would have worked?"

"She didn't even kiss me back the first time. She just looked surprised. I should have left her alone. All I know is I caused her months of pain because I got a little scared on a plane."

"You got scared on a plane? Is that really the story?"

"It has to be the story. She deserves better than this."

"And don't you think she's chosen what she wants?"

"I don't know." Danny rubbed his eyes tiredly. "But I can step out of the picture. Let her find her happy ending."

"Happily ever after?" Erica asked, that determined look stealing across her face again.

"Yeah." The chair started to shake and he reached for a seatbelt, which seemed like a stupid reflex, but he probably should have seen this one coming.

The last thing he heard as he found himself once again on a plane, shivering with cold or fear or something a little harder to explain away he heard Erica's last words to him.

"Good luck."

* * *

Notes:

There are a couple of incidental characters here from the other show, for the few who watch both.


	7. Not the Red Baron

The seat beneath him shook as his vision focused in on the back of the seat in front of him. That red-eye to New York hadn't been the first time he'd wanted to kiss Mindy Lahiri, but the turbulance had shaken him deeply enough to remind him that life was short, and he wanted her by his side for all of it. He knew now that he would always feel that way, but it wasn't just his future that would change if he did it again. Danny fought every impulse in his body telling him to get up and go find her in that airplane galley again, kiss her and just start over. Loving her, even for a short time, was more than he'd expected and more than he deserved, but she was going to have a beautiful life without him. He'd make sure this time.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember the trip back from LA. His dad had taken him out to retrieve the car early that morning, babbling self-consciously about Little Danny's soccer team and his business near the base as Danny tried to figure out how to talk to the man who'd walked away from his games half a lifetime ago. Mindy had already been packed when they'd gotten back to the house, quietly putting her bags into the trunk and retreating to the kitchen where she doled out easy smiles and friendly banter with his sister and his father, but fell eerily quiet the moment she and Danny were alone together.

His family had filled the silence most of the afternoon, and he'd watched with a hard-to-pin-down feeling that was almost like happiness as they warmed toward her – his father making Mindy some Micky Mouse pancakes to match Little Danny's, Little Danny herself asking Mindy for help with her hair. Then there had been a little moment at the game when Mindy returned his nervous grin with a wide genuine smile of her own; she'd been radiant in the sunlight and he'd finally felt real hope that she could forgive him.

The silent treatment ended approximately 5 minutes after they'd begun the drive to airport. She'd berated his music choice (Chicago, Danny? Are you being serious?) but one track later she was singing at the top of her lungs. He'd had to stop himself from commenting on how beautiful her voice was, a little reedy, but sweet and full of real emotion. She'd sung like a person who'd actually loved and lost, which made his tongue feel too thick and his stomach ache.

He'd pulled her bags from the trunk without asking when they returned the car, walking briskly toward the shuttle stop. She'd followed him with her small case and watched with wide eyes as he loaded them onto the shuttle for her, then quietly taken a seat beside him on the way to the airport. Every time they traveled she was "randomly" selected for a search, and he'd reflected that for someone who would scream down a Starbucks if they skimped on vanilla syrup by a quarter pump, she was surprisingly compliant about searches. He'd wondered if maybe she had caused a ruckus the first few times and now just accepted this as part of travel, or if maybe she just acted different around him. He'd stood at the end of the security line with her things, holding out an arm to allow her to lean on him as she pulled her shoes back on, and waited patiently outside the gift shop as she picked up a dizzying array of magnets and mugs and other tchotchkes to take back to the staff.

Danny had been a little surprised when Mindy handed him a shot glass of his own. (He'd ultimately keep that shot glass in a place of honor on his sideboard, and after things had ended he'd looked at it as a sign that they had been friends, and that they could be friends again. He'd been wrong, but it was funny to remember it right then as he gripped the armrests and waited for the turbulence to end, for the plane to land and for him to begin a new life where she'd never been hurt by him.) He'd tucked the gift into his hand luggage and helped Mindy load hers into the overhead compartment without comment. She'd stood so close as he'd lifted the bags, the same way she invaded every other part of his life. She'd put her hand on top of his as though they were pushing together when really he'd have managed without her help, and he couldn't help but wonder why she did it, why she always got too close. Mindy had gotten up three times before she'd gone for that tonic water, and each time he'd held his breath as she climbed over him, careful not to upset the balance that seemed to finally be tipping back toward normal.

When she'd suddenly apologized to him, his heart had skipped a beat. He hadn't understood until that moment that the divide between them caused by the fight in the desert was of his making as well, a distance built to cushion him from the reality that the person he cared about maybe more than anyone else had looked at him and seen Alan. He'd never hated anything in his life the way he'd hated Alan, and through her eyes he could see that he'd been the exact thing he'd always feared: a coward, and a liar.

You're great, she'd said, and he'd known that he owed her more than an apology for hurting her. He owed her the chance to start over again, to go get the guy, have the life she'd always wanted. Why hadn't he stuck with that?

One last jerk of the fuselage sent Danny's heart racing and his eyes flew open as he faced the surreal reality that it was happening again and he was going to let it pass him by, the chance he'd waited for, and everything he'd wanted for them. He wanted to believe his pounding heart and his inability to just breathe was about the rush of adrenaline that accompanied the feeling that he might plummet through the sky to his death at any moment, but he knew better. He knew now how she liked to burrow in blankets as she slept, and that she always bought Girl Scout cookies but paid double because it wasn't charity, it was an investment. He knew she always wanted the last dumpling, but she'd offer it anyway because that's what Beyonce would do. He knew she looked exactly as beautiful without makeup as she did with it, and her Boston accent came back with a vengeance when she talked to her family on the phone on Sunday afternoons. And he knew he'd never share any of that with her ever again.

"Danny?" Mindy's voice was close, and when he opened his eyes he found her peering into his face with a worried expression. He tried to open his mouth to respond, but his heart raced faster, and he began to shake. Maybe he'd finally reached the point where his body couldn't take any more adrenaline spikes, couldn't take any more anything. He could feel his eyes blur with unexpected tears and his chest grow too tight like something was sitting on him. The cans she held thumped as they hit the carpet and she reached for him. "Danny, you're scaring me."

She crawled over his lap, perching in her own seat as she began some basic physical checks, her hands warm on his wrist as she stared intently at her watch. She pushed his arm gently out of the way and lifted the armrest between their seats so she could scoot closer. "Danny, listen to me. I think this is a panic attack. If I know what it is, then you know what it is. I'm going to do some things to help you, but stop me if I'm hurting you or making things worse."

All he could do was stare as she unbuckled his seatbelt and adjusted his sweater a little where it had been tucked down too tight. Her knees pressed against his hip as she leaned forward and laid her hand on his chest, then picked up his hand and put it over her heart. "When I breathe, you breathe, okay? I'm going to count to ten, and when we get to 10 you're going to feel a lot better."

He wasn't sure that it was a panic attack, but he felt pretty sure once she got to "four" it would turn into one. Danny concentrated on her strong and steady heartbeat, willing the heaviness in his chest to slowly dissipate. "It's okay, Min. I'm okay."

A concerned member of the cabin crew approached, but she waved him away with an "I'm a doctor" and returned her attention to Danny. "Turbulence?" she asked quietly.

God, he wanted so much to tell her everything, but he just nodded silently and closed his eyes again, acutely aware that their hands still laid over each other's hearts. When she lifted hers he started to pull his away, but her hand covered his, holding it to her chest. Danny opened his eyes and found her staring at his face, her eyes soft and scared, all traces of the confident doctor who's just taken his vitals tried to talk him down from a panic attack washed away. "I'll be fine," he lied.

She tried to smile, but her lip quivered and her eyes were glassy. She let go of his hand, reaching for his face to cup his cheek. Time slowed down as he realized what was happening. He felt a little puff of breath on his lips before she kissed him, felt the tickle of her hair as it brushed across his brow. He found himself kissing her back for a moment before his brain caught up and forced him to pull away. She looked a little surprised, the same way she had when he'd kissed her, but as her finger touched her lips he knew she was mostly surprised at herself. "I thought I'd lost you," she whispered.

"It was just a panic attack."

"No, Danny, I know. I mean, for a second I thought it was a heart attack or something because you're so stupid and you won't quit smoking." Her face changed a little and she looked down. "Or maybe your dad broke your heart again."

"People don't die of a broken heart, Min."

She looked up again, staring directly into his eyes. "I don't think that's true."

"You're just messed up because of Cliff. You'll be fine. He'll take you back, I promise."

"Screw Cliff. He broke up with me, and I cried and I drank wine and I got over it before we even got to the desert."

"What?"

"Cliff and I weren't going to work out, Danny. He's handsome and everything, but he didn't know me well enough to know that I wouldn't cheat on him. I don't want to be with someone like that." Mindy slipped her hand in his and gave it a squeeze.

Danny self consciously pulled his hand away and looked down. "I'm sorry I scared you. I'm fine."

"I'm not fine though. I know it sounds stupid and you weren't dying, but something happened there. I felt you slip away."

"I'm here."

"You're here." Mindy smiled. "You're always here. It doesn't matter how bad things get, or how weird, I know you'll be here. Sometimes you complain about it, but you still show up."

"That's right." Danny shifted uncomfortably, unsure what he could say or do to stop this conversation. "We're friends."

She shook her head and locked her eyes with his. "I know you feel something for me. I knew that night when you danced for me and I asked you to come out on the roof with me. I waited for you and then Cliff came and I thought maybe it was some sort of sign, but I was wrong. I should have gone back for you."

"Min," he sputtered.

"Danny, don't tell me this isn't real." He could hear her breath shake a little as she breathed and leaned close again, letting her fingers brush against his. "This is real," she whispered.

He met her halfway this time, the taste of her lipstick and the sound of her ragged breathing filling his senses. His hand found her shoulder and pulled her close as she wound her fingers into his hair. He knew it was wrong, and he knew they'd both live to regret this again, but he also knew that he couldn't live without the heat that passed between them as she parted her lips and let his tongue touch hers. He couldn't live without mornings where she had to be unwrapped like a gift because she'd gotten too tangled in blankets, and he couldn't live without hearing that stupid Boston accent come out when she argued with Rishi about who left her bike unlocked in 1997 when it got stolen.

He kissed her for every moment he'd stolen from them when he broke up with her and every mistake he'd made and everything he knew would one day be snatched away from them again no matter what he did. He knew that now, that nothing he changed would actually fix them, but he could show her now that it was real.

Gasping, she pulled away from him and smiled, radiant and warm as the sun. His fingers grew cold again and he knew it was all going to happen again, but he wasn't going to live his life regretting a second of their time together.

. . . .

When his vision cleared he was sitting in Erica's office again and the first thing he did was rub the back of his hand across his lips to see if any traces of Mindy remained with him. He still tasted the lipstick, but his hand was clean. "So that's it?" he asked.

"You tell me," Erica replied.


	8. Are we in the clear yet?

Danny couldn't look up. His hand looked the same as ever, tanned a little from early morning runs, neat nails, a hint of dark hair peeking from the cuff of his hoodie. What had he been wearing on the plane? It seems like something he should have remembered, but the feeling of Mindy's fingers brushing the skin on his neck lingered, and the hand that had held Mindy only a moment ago and now just looked old, and empty. He shut his eyes. "You were right. The door thing is better than being pulled out of it."

"I know," Erica replied.

"How?" He finally met her eyes, green and serious and a little sad. "Are you an alien? How do you do this?"

Erica's lips tightened briefly. "You're Catholic, right?"

"Yeah."

Her serious look gave way to something a little more matter-of-fact. "Well, you're just gonna have to take this one on faith. You were hurt, and I could help. Well, I could offer help. What you do with it is up to you."

"Free will?" he asked.

"I guess so."

Danny sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "She kissed me. I stayed in my seat and she came back and she kissed me. Doesn't that mean it was supposed to happen?"

"I don't know." She gave an infuriating little half shrug.

"Why did you do this? Why did I have to live through everything again if it was just going to end the same way? Is everything just up to fate?" He felt like he should be angrier, but that tank was empty. All he had left was tired. And sad.

"Do you believe in fate?" she asked.

"No." Danny lowered his head and ran his hands through his hair, resting his elbow on his knees. "Maybe. I believe you make your own fate."

"So what happened?"

"She did." A realization about what had happened settled heavily on his chest and he looked up. "She made her own fate."

"Free will." Erica's response was firm.

He wondered what it was like to be that sure about anything. He'd messed this up so badly. "Yeah."

She got that solemn therapist look on her face. "So is everything just up to fate?"

"I don't know." He felt even further from a real answer than he had only a minute ago when he'd asked Erica the exact same question. If nothing changed no matter what he did then surely it was fate. Or maybe it just meant that he would always make the same decisions. Or that Mindy would.

Except he hadn't.

Mindy hadn't.

"Maybe she wanted the same thing I wanted." He blew out a harsh breath and asked the question he'd been trying not to think about. "When I go back is anything going to be different?"

Erica shrugged again. "I don't know. You made your decisions and she made her decisions and you just have to find out when you get there. The same as any day."

"Why? Why did you do this? What was the point? To show me that I'll always fuck up and I'll always hurt her?"

Her eyes flickered a little. "When I was training for this, this thing I do, I got a free pass for 24 hours. The doctor who trained me told me I could change how time and space worked for one whole day. I could have done anything, spent the whole day walking through Barcelona, or visiting friends I don't get to see anymore because I'm busy or far away. Or they are. Anything." She licked her lips. "What I actually did was spend the whole day trying to change how this one fight with my boyfriend turned out."

Danny wondered which fight with Mindy he'd want to change. There were too many. Maybe this was fate. "Was it a bad fight?"

"It was. He wanted to take a job and I thought he should just finish school, and it felt like a small fight until suddenly it wasn't. I thought he was just being shortsighted, and too proud. He didn't think I was listening to what he wanted. Anyway, it was bad. I fixed it though, a couple of different times, but it kept ending the same way."

Danny could feel the sadness pouring off of her, this woman he didn't really know, but who for some reason had decided that he needed her. "So what happened?"

"I told him what I'd done. That I'd changed the day because our fight had gotten so bad, and that I was trying to see where he was coming from instead of being a bulldozer."

"Did it work?"

"No. He said I took away his free will. And I guess I did in a way, changing my story without acknowledging that it was his story too."

"So is that what you're doing here? Trying to help me avoid the same mistake you made?"

"No." She shook her head before meeting his eyes. "My mistakes are mine, and your mistakes are yours. But there are people who love us, and people we love, who are the stars of their own stories. We can't force our version of events. We'll make choices they hate, and they'll make choices we hate and we can't just keep approaching a relationship like our way is the right way."

"I don't understand her way. I don't think I can be what she wants."

"I don't think anyone knows how to do or say the right things to make someone love them and stay with them."

"What do I do?"

"You go back and live your life. You'll probably screw things up again anyway, but don't stop trying, and don't ever forget you're not the only one in this situation. You're going to forget that sometimes, but try again."

"Try again."

The cold isn't a surprise this time.

. . . .

Danny could hear the TV through the door. He hadn't expected to be dropped back into his life in front of her apartment, but since that's where he was going when he'd been pulled away to make the same mistakes on a plane, it seemed only fitting.

His knuckles flew across the wood, a tiny, too-quiet tattoo that he wished he could take back. He could turn away if she didn't hear him. He wasn't ready. He might never be ready.

"Danny?" The sun streaming through the windows behind her as the door swung open struck her at that perfect angle again, and he was reminded of a halo and a kiss from a version of last night that never happened to them. Remembering all that followed made his heart stutter in his chest. It never happened though, not for her, and her puzzled look broke his train of thought.

"Hi. I, uh. I locked my keys in my apartment. Can I get the spare I gave you?"

She opened the door wider. "Sure. Come in. I ordered way too much food."

"You always do that." He smiled at her, trying to push away memories of falling asleep on the sofa with her, a warm little raft in a sea of white boxes and abandoned chopsticks. She never quite got the hang of chopsticks. "Wok Box? You got diarrhea last time we ate there."

"You don't know that. I'd also eaten that hotdog, and we haven't seen that cart since that day. I think he poisoned everyone and had to move to Baltimore or something."

"Serves you right for buying a hotdog from a guy dressed as a hotdog." He watched as she up-ended her purse on the counter and poked at the debris with a little frown.

"Rude." She walked over to the door and jammed her hand in the pocket of a denim jacket and took it him a minute to remember why it looked familiar. He'd always kind of loved her in denim. It made her seem realer somehow, something as plain as denim against her electraberry dress. She dropped the keys in his hand. "Here."

"Thanks."

She looked uncomfortable, suddenly stripped of a task that allowed them both to pretend this was as simple as a favor. She stood very slightly too far from him, like she was afraid he'd lunge at her again. "I'm glad you came by. I kinda wanted to talk to you after last night. I think maybe I should move back to this place." She cleared her throat. "I think I got all my stuff this morning, but you should check."

Danny nodded and swallowed the stay stuck in his throat. "Okay."

"It was really nice of you to offer, but maybe I'm not ready to buy a place yet. And maybe we're not ready to be neighbors yet either."

"Whatever you want. I guess I didn't think about how that might backfire."

Mindy's brow furrowed. "Really? I feel like you did. I think you wanted to put a pin in me in case you changed your mind."

The keys were sharp against his palm. No matter what happened or didn't happen last night in his other apartment or in this place or on a plane, this was real. And she was right. "Maybe. I guess I owe you an apology. We were good at being friends and I thought maybe we could just be like that again and it would be okay. Or something."

"Were we friends, though? Or were we like Harry and Sally and the friendship and the attraction were two sides of the same coin?"

"What?"

"When Harry Met Sally." Mindy rolled her eyes and he knew they were out of the woods for now. "Danny, I've made you watch it like 22 times at least."

"Yeah, I know the name of the movie. I guess I didn't pay attention."

"Well you should. Nora Ephron taught me like half of everything I know about love. She was like an oracle."

"Yeah, maybe."

Danny wondered who taught her the other half of everything she knew about love. "You're wrong though. We were friends. Or you were my friend, even when I didn't deserve you." The corners of her lips twitched into a little frown that was gone almost as quickly as it appeared. "Anyway, I'm gonna get going. I'm sorry, Mindy. I hope I didn't mess up your date or anything."

"No, it was actually kinda great. Not 13 Going on 30 great, but at least 16 Candles great."

He knew they were movies, but as always she was speaking a language he didn't understand. Maybe she had taken Charlie home last night. Maybe not. It wasn't his business, and that was his own fault. He looked away. "Well, you deserve it."

"Thanks." Her small was smile, but it was real and it was for him. He didn't know if he really could figure out what it would take to make her happy, but he had to try.

. . . .

He took the long way home. Less than 12 hours ago he'd been flat on the pavement, trying to claw his way back to consciousness, his lungs pulling hard at the city scents of oil poured into pavement and damp leaves that never quite blew away. He walked by the very spot where it had happened and it just looked like a any city street. He wasn't sure what he'd expected. A chalk outline might have been something, if they did that kind of thing for men who'd cracked their head open because they couldn't look at where they were running.

The door wasn't there. Could you dream something like that? Dr Erica, or whoever she really was, had said she could change time and space, but how much could really change? He still wasn't sure if he could believe anything that happened, but maybe it wasn't for believing, it was just for knowing. He knew something now that he hadn't known – that Mindy been attached. He hadn't seen it, and maybe he hadn't wanted to see it, but she'd been in as deep as he'd been. That was real enough for him.

He passed his own door and went straight for the extra apartment. (Definitely his now, never hers.) The apartment was colder than the corridor, and quiet. No one would ever know she'd been here. The kitchen was clean, but that was more or less what he expected. She'd eaten with him most nights. (I'll cook for you tomorrow, she'd said as she sat behind him stealing cherry tomatoes from the salad while he grilled fat slices of halloumi, and again the next night while she traced curse words in flour and watched him feed dough into the pastamaker, and the night after that as he kept an eye on the mushrooms so they wouldn't burn.)

The bathroom was blessedly clear of her paraphernalia and, and nothing of the warm vanilla and lavender scents from the night before lingered. Bile began to burn his throat as he approached the bedroom, but he pushed the door open and found that it too was neat as a pin, which said more about his mistakes last night than anything she'd said aloud to him. She must have wanted to erase herself from this place, his place (not hers) and forget this even happened. He breathed slowly as the churning in his stomach slowed to be replaced by an emptiness that matched his perfectly clean, perfectly quiet, perfectly Mindy-less apartment. He checked the windows, which were for once shut and locked tightly, and unplugged everything before moving back into the living room. He had turned the TV to reach behind and unplug everything on the entertainment stand when he saw it, You've Got Mail.

She'd made him watch it two nights ago, the night she'd sauntered into his bedroom and taken a pair of his grey socks and rolled them over her own socks and then shoved both her feet under his leg and resumed drinking wine while lying down, her revenge for his refusal to turn the heat on. He couldn't remember the names of the characters, but he remembered how Mindy punched him with her curled toes excitedly when someone opened email. And he remembered the way Mindy had smiled at him through real tears when Tom Hanks took his dog to the park to meet Meg.

Whatever Meg Ryan was feeling in that scene was beyond him, but it wasn't beyond Mindy. She felt it, and he knew then that he had to find out why.

Mindy had to know that it was more than missing her that made him try to kiss her, more than wanting that made him say such stupid things when he was around her. It wasn't loneliness that made him reach for her, or fear. It was just Mindy. She didn't have to do or be anything to make him love her. He'd never been able to say it, and if he stood any chance of giving her the kind happiness she deserved he had to find out what made her her squeal indignantly when Tom Hanks ate caviar, and what made her eyes glisten with tears when Meg told the stupid kid at the book store about shoe books. He had to learn her language. He pushed the disc into the player and turned the TV on.

A computer generated New York swept across the TV screen, and Danny Castellano said a little prayer. He'd never been very good at loving someone the right way, but if anyone could teach him something about loving Mindy it was Nora Ephron. As he leaned back against the sofa a little lavender wafted up from the pillows, and something a little like hope lifted the heaviness from his chest for the first time in a very long time. She'd been here. Whatever happened last night, or the night before or on a plane, they'd been here. And he was going to get her back.


	9. Epilogue

He's late for sure. The text said "Get more cups," but it doesn't mean any cups. It has to be those clear cups that look like tumblers and he knows as he pulls the sweater over his head that he's going 13 blocks out of his way to get the right ones and he's definitely, definitely going to be late.

. . . .

Autumn is already creeping into the city, and as he picks his way through the last of the summer tourists drifting across the pavement like stray leaves all he can think of is that thing Joe says about pencils in You've Got Mail. A bouquet of pencils. More romantic than practical, but he looks down at the plastic bag in his hand and wishes he'd thought to buy pencils and ribbon anyway. She'd love that.

He's finally learned how to be late for things. Fatherhood has given him that, amongst other gifts. He'd be the first to admit it's softened him a little, made him a little easier. A little kinder. For starters none of the tourists are catching elbows as he runs, and when he sees a small figure hunched over in front of him trying to scoop fallen books into her arms he stops to help quickly.

"Good thing it isn't raining," he says as he bends down. A ripped canvas bag dangles from her arm, plain cotton with something screenprinted on the side in black. It takes him only a second to recognize what is printed on the bag. "Goblins?"

She looks up and he realizes how close he is, her green eyes perhaps not as bright as he remembers, but the smile very much the same. "Hey," she says.

"Hey." He opens his own bag and fishes out the sleeves of plastic cups, then hands her the empty bag. "Take mine."

Her eyes crinkle a little as her smile widens. "Danny, right?"

Danny watches her push the books into the new bag and stands before offering her a hand. "I didn't think I'd see you again."

"What can I say? Business is booming. I'm here here for one of my authors." Erica takes his hand and pulls herself up, books now safely tucked into the new bag. "Me, actually."

"Oh you write books?"

"Well, one book."

"Self help?" he asks cautiously.

"No, a novel. It's what I always wanted to do." She crumples the torn Goblins bag and shoves it on top of the books.

"Well, good for you."

"Thanks." She's still smiling, but she looks so serious. "And you? How are things?"

"Good." Danny feels the corners of his lips turn up. He smiles a lot more these days too. "Really good."

"I'm glad." Erica straightens her scarf and shifts the bag to her left hand before extending her right. "It was nice to see you again."

He takes her hand and gives it a firm shake, but as she tries to withdraw it he holds on for a second before letting go. "Listen, whatever it was that you did... I owe you my whole life. Thank you."

"You don't owe me anything. You make your own decisions. If you figured out what you want, then that's all you."

"No, I do. I, uh, made some more dumb decisions after that night. I kept trying to figure out what she wanted and messed it up some more, but what you said stuck with me."

"What was that?" She cocks her head to the side and watches him with a familiar thoughtful expression.

"That I can't keep acting like my way is the best way. It's her story too."

"Well, that's true." Erica smiles. "So how'd your story turn out?"

"Good. Better than good." He pulls his phone out of his pocket with his free hand and turns it to her. He'd taken the picture the first day they'd come back from the hospital. Mindy had squawked at him upon hearing the shutter sound, furious that he'd taken a picture when she wasn't wearing makeup. She'd tried to make him delete it, but he'd just threatened to take more when she fell asleep. He'd have taken her more seriously if she hadn't been grinning like an idiot the whole argument. "He's one year old today."

She leans close to see his lock screen. "They're beautiful."

"That's nothing. He's really big now. He's...he's something else." That stupid smile comes back with a vengeance. "He's his mom all over though. He's got Mindy's temper and since he started crawling we can't keep him in one place for more than a minute. He can kinda walk if you let him hold your hand, but he can't go really anywhere yet and he just gets so mad about it. I think we're in trouble in a couple months when he really gets going."

Erica's fingers are light on his shoulder as she gives it a kind squeeze. "I'm happy for you."

"I'd offer to buy you a coffee, but I don't know how to get to your coffee place and I'm kinda late for the party." Danny pauses. "You wanna come with? There's plenty of food, Ma's been cooking for 2 days and I think Mindy ordered 3 different cakes."

"Thanks for the offer, but I've got places to be." Erica's scarf slips out of place again and she tucks it into her jacket, buttoning it quickly to keep it in place. "How late are you? You need a little help?" Her eyes twinkle mischievously.

Danny Castellano looks at the sleeves of plastic tumblers in his hands. He's kept Mindy waiting too many times and it's tempting to take the shortcut, but some things are worth taking the time to do right. He smiles at his strange guardian angel. "Nah. I've got another stop to make."

. . . .

Mindy greets him with a quick kiss as she hands him a very grumpy little boy with purple icing on his chin. "What took you so long?"

Danny kisses his son's warm hair and shifts him to one arm before reaching into the bag he'd just put down. The bouquet he hands her is classic yellow Number 2s with a green ribbon for good measure. He'd gotten so many things wrong about how to love her the way she wanted to be loved, but the way her eyes light up make him think he might just be getting the hang of it. "I ask myself that all the time."


End file.
